Born at Manitou on 27 November 1951, son of William Scurfield and Cynthia May Beamish, he moved to Winnipeg to attend university and later law school. He worked as a lawyer with the firm of Wolch Pinx Tapper Scurfield and was made a Queen’s Counsel in 1989. He was involved in labour management arbitrations, including mediation of a strike by faculty of the University of Manitoba in 1995. He headed a provincial review of public school teacher salaries. He served as President of the Law Society of Manitoba and President of the Manitoba Liberal Party. He was appointed to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench in July 2002 and presided over several high-profile cases. He died at Winnipeg, of cancer, on 14 November 2009.